I'm sorry for not updating yesterday- I was about to pass out, very weak, and have since learned that I am anaemic. So there's a viable excuse if I ever heard one. Anyways, there are no review replies tonight, but I promise to reply tomorrow, it's just that I'm feeling rather drained from this whole anaemia thing. Sorry.


***


Liam walked down the passageway slowly, making his way towards the armoires. He climbed down the creaky steps and gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dim candlelight. A tall, raven-haired girl stood in the corner.

"Go away!" Meryl muttered as she rifled through the swords.

Liam frowned. "These aren't your blades, they're Jack's. What's wrong with your own sword?"

"What are you doing on Jack's ship, aye?" Meryl diverted the conversation.

"Helping Emm. She's gathering up the last of her things." He glanced at her suspiciously. "Now what's wrong with your own sword? Why do you need one of Jack's?"

"I like that sword." Meryl mused, a sadistic, demonic note of melancholy in her voice. "T'would be a shame to get it all bloodied up and then not be around to clean it." She selected an old practise sword from the rack.

Liam looked at her, absolutely petrified. "You mean to do yourself in?"

Meryl groaned. "Please, would you just go! Why are you trying to help me- it wont change anything!"

He scowled at her. "I think it would be a shame to let any blood stain this deck without someone here ready to clean it. Not that you show the same courtesy."

Meryl paused thoughtfully to consider this, then continued in an almost apologetic tone. "I'm sorry, Captain Doust, you're absolutely right." She dropped the sword from her left hand, her right snatching a pistol up off one of the beaten-up spruce tables. "This will be much cleaner."

Liam's hand wrapped around her wrist tightly. "I'm not going to let you do this."

Meryl scowled. "I'll kill you if you stand in my way."

"At least I wont die a coward's death."

"Oh and getting killed by a woman is the brave way down, aye?"

The ship shuddered underneath them. Meryl stumbled backwards across the floor, Liam falling in the opposite direction. He looked up at her as the shuddering ceased. "What was that?"

His answer came in the form of a cool mist of water that was hissing up from the floor.

"It's foggy out." Meryl said, scrambling to her feet. "We must have hit rocks or something." She headed up on deck, fleeing the frightening, half-sunken scene that was now the belly of The Imprintor, not bothering to stop and help Liam.

An hour later she floated in a small rower, sitting opposite the above mentioned gentleman, lost and separated from her fellow crewmates by a dense fog and a thick, grey curtain of rain. The Imprintor, the stately British warship, was gone, replaced by a windless shower and a quiet but thick forest of rainfall. How she had ended up in a boat with Liam was a complete mystery to her- everything had happened so fast; the storm, the sinking...

She closed her eyes and prayed for a typhoon that would come to swallow up her wretched self, her world, her misery.

They say that God never gives us a burden without giving us the strength to bear it. As far as Meryl was concerned, 'they' had been gravely misdirected.

Death, for now, was a welcome thought.


***


Next chapter is the dramatic Jack/Morgan scene we've all (ok, so just me) been waiting for! I'll try to post tomorrow- please review!

-SQ